I only played the original Kengo once, long long ago, when me and some friends were just trying out a big stack of PS2 games we'd never played before. My memory of it is as a weird idiosyncratic swordfighting game that had a dedicated buttong for yelling at your opponent. The reason I bring Kengo up is that this is actually Kengo 2, mysteriously renamed by its western publisher. I recently tried it out on a whim, and got totally engrossed in what is not just a swordfighting game, but a game about being a swordfighter.
What does that mean? Well, the main mode in this game has you "making" (that is, picking a face and a body from a very small selection. In fact, there's only one female body!) a character and then making a debut on the local swordsmanship scene in a little village named Chiaraijima. You can take part in casual fights down at the riverbank, or you can go to one of the local dojos to learn the basics. The game's very idiosyncratic in how it plays, and if you go in trying to playing like Samurai Shodown or Last Blade, you'll get nowhere, so going and learning the basics is recommended. It's a much better way of getting in the tutorial than a lot of games, too, since you don't have to go straight there, and the lessons address one subject at a time, so inbetween you can go and test what you've learned at the riverbank.
Eventually, you'll get the opportunity to spar against other students at the dojo, and even challenging the students and masters of other dojos! All of the above are, of course, competitive bouts using wooden and bamboo swords. But there's a couple of other things to occupy your time in Chiaraijima. There are the secret nighttime fights that take place in an abndoned courtyard, and they use real swords. Also using real swords are the jobs you can go on, brokered by a local merchant. Real sword fights change the mechanics slightly. For a start, if you get cut, you start bleeding and losing health (I've even had a fight end with both participants bleeding to death at the same time!), and yes: lose a real swordfight and you die, and get sent back to the title screen. You can reload your save from there, but still. It's a lot more dramatic than taking a couple days' rest after losing a normal fight.
The jobs are slightly different still. There's a little bit of Bushido Blade here, as you have to fend of groups of enemies who attack a few at a time, but can be taken out themselves with one or two hits. The game also makes mention that if you guard too much in a real sword fight, the metal can get chipped and the sword can even break, leaving you defenceless, but I haven't seen that happen. I'm not sure what the point of taking these risks is, since there's no money in this game, but presumably, there are story events that can happen if you consistently do well enough in them. (For example, the merchant who gives you your jobs doesn't appear himself until you make a few consecutive wins at the riverbank).
To clarify some of the above: everything other than the fights and jobs is menu-based. Every day, you can choose to rest or do one of the above activities. Whatever you pick, it'll take up the whole day. Anything other than resting will usually increase all of your stats by some amount, and also decrease your stamina. Resting replenishes your stamina, and no matter how low it is, it'll usually be back to full after two days, and if you're impatient, you can still go out if it isn't full, you'll just have less health. I don't know if resting too many days in a row makes your skills atrophy and your stats decline, but that seems like it'd be logical. Finally, you learn new moves by getting hit by them!
Like I said, I've been engrossed in this game. Some people might find the structure repetitive, others might find the fighting clunky and weird, but I think if you're willing to give it a chance, this is a game that you can really get a lot out of. As simple as it is, there's lots of interesting little details to notice, too. For example, the guys you fight down at the riverbank are all just named "Swordsman", but as you keep going back, you'll come to recognise them on sight, and they use consistent fighting styles, so they're definitely the same guys who keep coming back, and not just random nobodies represented by the same models. If you're able to, I recommend at least giving this a try.
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